This morning I will rely on it to get me out of Lerdo and on my way to Zacatecas. I used the taxi driver trick to get me to the hotel late yesterday afternoon. Was it trice who posted that idea? It is a great one. I was tired and wandering around in a strange place... the taxi got me to the zocalo pronto... diez pesos, worth every centavo!

Nice use of the Taxi Trick

To the aspect of who coined the idea: I don't think anybody really invented it and its probably been used since taxis have been around.

But I wrote about it here in March of '09: The Taxi Trick as a piece of advice to newer travelers to Mexico.

Yes, Bicimapas is getting better every year, with more and more detail. And we talk about mapping etc. here in the IMS thread as we do the other classic "cyclical" or "boomerang" topics like insurance and topes.

YMMV, but to me, in any size town or certainly cities, I'd rather defer to the taxi driver than my GPS to take me to the hotel and, on the flip side, out to my departure highway. There are a number of reasons for this.

Probably the chief reason is that with a GPS/Bicimapas, you have at best excellent situational awareness but what you don't have is an inexpensive local guide, hired on the spot, to be your personal concierge for the truly fastest route, least traffic, hotel recommendations, things to see, or whatever else you ask him for. Plus, and this doesn't get talked about enough - you can enjoy the scenery, look around, concentrate on the senses firing at you all at once as you explore yet another fantastic Mexico destination. Who wants to be studying a GPS while keeping eyes on city traffic? And why do you want to shoulder that worry, when you should be smiling your ass off and really enjoying the destination?

If you really want to have fun, get comfortable with hiring taxi guides on the fly, which means engaging their guide service while stopped at a red light or even while in moving traffic. Just shout something like this while moving along:

As I wander through this thread it seems like there are a lot of riders going to Mexico this time of year. Would anyone have an idea of how many go in the winter?
And more specifically into Baja?
And even more specifically into Baja riding a V-Strom? (not that I'm prejudiced or anything... )

And finally, a specific question: when we crossed at Ojinaga, the border guards just chatted with us about the bikes, and said we should check out Santa Elena canyon from the Mexican side...and nothing about TVIP or tourist cards.

You can be in the border zones for 36 hours without a tourist card, and you don't need a TVIP either. I assume that these border folks were the Mexican authorities because usually the US authorities are clueless about Mexican procedures.

Glad to see some folks riding over there. Exploring that area is on my bucket list.

As I wander through this thread it seems like there are a lot of riders going to Mexico this time of year. Would anyone have an idea of how many go in the winter?
And more specifically into Baja?
And even more specifically into Baja riding a V-Strom? (not that I'm prejudiced or anything... )

If the last one applies to you please contact me.

We see lots of riders here in Sonora. Northern Mexico in winter can be cold at times with morning lows in the mid to 30s. Som of the border areas are about 5,000 ft and it snows from time to time at those altitudes. La Rumorosa in Baja gets snow and it can be pretty cold in the mountains. We got snowed on in March 2010 on Mex5 between La Trinidad and Ensenada up high.

Take a sleeping bag even if you are staying in hotels. Many hotels have no heaters (ours does ) and many have only thin blankets. You will be happy to have it if it cools down. Pack your heated vest and winter gloves and hope you never use them. Once you get closer to Baja Califonia Sur, things will warm up.

And if you check your IPad or with your phalanx of personal assistants, they will tell you there are only 2 weeks left in "this year".

Just so you know.

Point taken. I am already on the 2013 oilfield schedule.

I hate to post too much publicly because those things have a way of coming back and haunting a person, especially since i am sure that ED, Evangelical Deborah or Evil Deborah depending on your perspective, reads this thread pretty closely. But I had asked some folks about doing a BBQ and Blues ride from Austin to New Orleans this Spring. Recently my girlfriend started talking about riding down to Texas from Wisconsin in 2 days in order to go riding into Mexico, and she has been talking about doing that in March.

So we shall see. I have been sitting at the same oil well for 3.5 weeks and if i can put in another 2 months or so without committing a felony then I am golden. Let's hope that the work holds because this is traditionally the slack time of the season.

The last time that I went riding it wasn't pretty, and you have to remember that I rode coast to coast in less than 50 hours back in 2002, so this being off the bike and getting (slightly) older is wearing on me.

Anyway ... I hear ya Trice. I have a bucket list that is going into several volumes right now, with Texas riding just being Volume 1. Got a couple of deals that I am working on and the only thing between them, me, and replacing my RV and tools and plenty of bike stuff is cubic money, but I am getting there fast.

Cheers on that, because "bucket list", "planning" and "hopefully" are fodder for a younger man's vocabulary.

Guys our age can't afford to keep them in our lexicon.

Even if you still feel like you're 25, time has a way of eclipsing the best of intentions.

I did a tremendous amount of riding 10-15 years ago. We joked at the time that I was having my retirement early and might have to work when I got older. Little did I know that my ex- would hire someone to steal my RV and almost all of my personal property at the same time the economy had turned down.

But yeah, I know exactly what you mean. My Facebook page tends to be one motivational poster after another, encouraging folks to take a chance and to live their lives now. That is a formula that has worked extremely well for me this minor topes on the road of life notwithstanding.

My late father was very accomplished. But he planned his whole life around retiring at 62. Sadly, he died suddenly at 59. My grandfather also died suddenly at 59. I am 56 and take that as a Great Galactic Hint to get out, explore, and live.

Just FYI I had a conversation with my mother and discovered that she had a life insurance policy on my carcass since the time I was in my late 30's. She told me that she never thought that I'd live this long and she seemed to be a bit annoyed that she can't collected yet.

We see lots of riders here in Sonora. Northern Mexico in winter can be cold at times with morning lows in the mid to 30s. Som of the border areas are about 5,000 ft and it snows from time to time at those altitudes. .

When I left Nogales in January or February 1999 there was frost on my bike when I went out to pack in the morning.

About a week later I was taking the train to the Copper Canyon from el Fuerte, which isn't too far from where you are at, and there was light snow on the ground.

Not too many years ago I remember a group of inmates that road into Creel just in time to get caught in a snow storm. They were stranded for several days and posted photos of road graders out clearing the snow.

When I did that 1999 trip the infamous Pancho Villa tours (now Moto Discovery) put us up in a former nunnery in Alamos. The rooms were not only rustic but they didn't have any heat either.

I have seen it get uncomfortably cold in the McAllen, TX area in the middle of the winter. Arte and Andres and I went over to the Sierra Madre Brew Co. in Reynosa one year and it was bloody cold in the building, and that's a very nice place but I assume that they don't have heat in the building.

But for anyone reading this who thinks this is all typically Mexican, it's really just typically tropical. I was once in Key West on a record setting cold day (45 or so ). In the Florida Keys few rooms have heat and most of the dining is open to the elements so it can get cold.

Moral of the story - if you are riding in Mexico in January or February then Turkeycreek is 100% correct - bring something like a fleece jacket to keep you warm.